


Petrel Wings

by Carliro



Category: The Thing (1982), The Thing - All Fandoms
Genre: Body Horror, M/M, anguish, unfulfilled
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-05 19:53:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carliro/pseuds/Carliro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bit on Windows. (USOP31 MAT)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Petrel Wings

It came like a lightning bolt, fast and deadly, only a thousandfold more unholy.

Just as Palmer's head became a set of unnatural, rotten jaws, so did a lashing tongue emerge. Windows, already paralised by primal, raw fear, barely had a chance to scream, before his head has between a pair of decaying fleshy molds, which instantly bit him with jagged, hollow and oozing teeth. He was pretty much reduced to a state of screaming mindlessness, the mammal within crying in pain and terror, as his head and throat were brutally mauled by a living disease, each bite infecting him with sentient, malevolent necrosis. It carelessly flailed his body around, like a dog biting a chicken-shaped toy, making him hit the lamp and embed glass shards in his back and legs. In this horrid nightmare of a moment, he briefly heard the others reacting in panic, utterly desesperate as the flamethrower did not work. They quickly evaporated as myst from his ears, as the constant abuse, the searing pain and his own terror-induced madness blocked him from the world. 

It was only him, the monster, and his agony.

He recalled being hastily tossed aside, falling on the shelf and then the ground. He felt horrible, not just because of the pain, but because the assimilating horror had laid a blanket on his flesh and soul, like being baptised with thick, necrotic blood. It oozed into him, invading his brain, his veins, and the worst part is that he was filled with a strange realisation that he could fight against this assimilation. That thing stole his strength, stole life giving blood and ruptured through important tissue, and now all he was left was with little and fading strength, just about enough to cry.

Feeling his brain being covered by tainted ichor, his eyes began to blind, darkness invading his vision. A cursory thought recalled him of the stories his grandmother told him as a lad, about the soothing blanket of night that makes us sleepy, and for a moment he felt some glimmer of hope.

Then MacReady appeared on his mind, and he was finally defeated.

***

"Nice weather, ain't it?", Windows asked with a boyish grin.

MacReady stared at him with a mixture of amusement and "fuck off", before quickly dismissing him for scotch.

"You know, you're gonna get stuck with us for half an year. You might as well quit havin' 'Nam trauma bullshit."

This earned him a hasty but still precise punch in the left cheek.

"The fuck man!?"

"Shut the fuck up!" said a furious MacReady, who then stormed away.

"Serves you right, you know" said Nauls, preparing a brew.

Windows flipped him the bird, and then returned to the radio operation system. He rather unceremoniously pressed the hurt cheek against a cold metal bar.

***

That each staff member was assigned to shared dorms was expected and well prepared for. Windows was assigned to "the top right" room, right above Naul's and parallel to Copper and Fuchs. He was actually pretty lucky; most of the personnel had already decided their final resting places. He knew at least that he wouldn't share his room with any of the top five in his list of unattractive or infuriating men, so at least his lack of privacy would not be too agravating.

It took little to unpack his belongings: two sets of clothes and hyegienic stuff, a little cassette player, his stash, and a small bald eagle plushie, unfortunately victimised as it's belly had a cut, revealing the white stuffing. This little "companion bird" was hidden between the clothes, now infested with the white vicerae. It saddened him a little to see how damaged it was, but in the antarctic wilderness there were no props to fix it, so it would have to bear with him for the Winter. He picked the plush, pushing the soft, almost pennaceous cotton inside to it's proper container, squeeshing the wings to see if they were still full. They were still thankfully in proper condition. Recalling foundly, the man grabbed the wing bases and moved them up and down, just like he did so many years ago, when the eagle more readily came to life and flapped it's wings. In a fit of childish glee, he made it as if the eagle flew all the way from the clothes to it's final resting place, the little table next to his bed.

Windows turned on the cassette player, and relaxed on the bed. He was only able to bring four cassettes, and he decided to put on the soundtrack of the movie _Alien_ , which had just premiered three years ago. If Palmer had his weed, Windows had his music, and in his most humble opinion - that that he was very humble, anyways -, it was a much better drug. He gradually dosed off, his mind filled with the dark music and images of black monsters and Ripley killing them.

Then MacReady pretty much punched the cassette player into silence. How unexpected.

"The fuck man!? I thought you had a cabin for yourself!"

"Garry says it's not ready yet. Gotta be stayin' here for a couple nights."

Windows bit his lip in frustration. In retrospect, he was a lot less bothered than he should had been, though it was probably not very surprising given how aesthetics driven the radio operator was, and damn was the pilot aesthetically appealing. Though he knew better than to embrace that.

"Soz for the 'Nam thing" Windows whimpered.

MacReady gave him a cursory glance, then simply scoffed, and began unpacking. Seeing someone else equally as decency dismissive was both hypocritically insufferable for Windows as it was a turn on. These were going to be quite long "couple nights".

***

"So what's the plushie for?" asked MacReady.

Windows was relaxing in a "mock nap", something he'd been doing more frequently now that the pilot shared his room. When even the talkative radio operator thought himself above direct conversation, seeing Mr Antisocial start it was quite unnatural and eldritch.

"For sentimental bullshit."

"Ever thought of getting it fixed?"

"Nah, 'tis kinda of important that it's like that."

Windows rose from the bed, sitting in a somewhat childish way, removing the blankets from his upper body to reveal blue pajamas. MacReady was sitting on the bed, with a bottle of booze on his right hand, wearing a beige polo and black pants. He averted his gaze downwards, but every once in a while he looked at Window's face, as if begging for context. It was weird, to say the least.

"'Twas given to me by a person I care about. Then it got ripped because I am an asshole, and I feel it's important to remind me of that."

"Not that you need remembering" MacReady saying in what appeared to be a somewhat playful tone.

"You're acting very weird. Did Palmer drug you or somethin'?"

MacReady simply drank more booze.

***

US Outpost 31always had radio problems of some sort or another. So did other camps in the area; there was a strange interference, so far undetected, that screwed up the radio waves. Combined with a particularly nasty weather storm, communications could be impossible for days. So when Windows failed to operate the radio for an entire day, he was not the least bit alarmed, and went off to listen to music. He didn't enjoyed it as much as usual, though. Part of him was starting to think that his life was going to waste, that his year in the isolation of the antarctic was a rather depressing blank in his life, away from the vibrancy and life of the civilised world. He could also swear everyone else hated him, so that was a "bonus", being stuck with men who were just above wanting him dead and being a purpose less parasite at that. Then there were other worries. A dark anxiety clinged on the back of his mind all day, as if something horribly wrong had happened. He tried to shove it aside for the first half of the day, but it started to consume him to the point that he had to stop the music.

He looked outside. At the distance, a giant petrel soared in the freezing heavens, so far away from the life giving ocean. The radio operator always liked to see birds in flight, and now, more than ever, he envied the lone wanderer. How good it would be if he had wings, and could leave this place.

"Watcha lookin' at?" asked MacReady.

"Some bird."

"You like birds?"

"I have an eagle plushie. Guess."

"S'me too."

Windows turned around. MacReady was drinking a beer - how unpredictable -, and he was just in his underwater, a pair of white boxers and a wife beater. Windows briefly wanted to mock MacReady's almost insane decision to wear so little, but he decided against it, in favour of some apreciation. It could be the only time in this entire year where he would have any fanservice. And by whatever God out there, was he ever so lucky!

MacReady either didn't notice or didn't care, as he simply laid on the bed, in a pose that did little to persuade the radio operator's mind from fetishising. He did know, however, that MacReady's lack of care was only a temporary bliss.

"So, have anyone waitin' back home?"

The pilot sigh, looking as if searching for words.

"No. Not since the war, no."

"Uh, sorry to hear?"

"Don't be. The last thing I want is mock-pity, especially from you."

"Jeez, you almost say it like I have no feelings or somethin'."

A hint of a mischevious smirk bent itself on MacReady's face, something both unexpected and radiant like the now fading Sun, making Windows smile an honest, warm grin.

"So what about you? Have anyone waiting?"

"Nope, single too."

 _Though not for lack of trying_ , a cursory thought whispered.

MacReady bit his lip, having a pensative expression on his face, as if looking for something within.

"Seen your stash."

"So, gonna beat me up or what?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure what to think anymore. At least I'm glad you're not putting up a mask. Hate when people hide themselves."

"Hey, I'm already unsufferable. Gotta at least have somethin' good about me, right?"

MacReady smirked more openly. Yep, almost a replacement for the solar orb.

"Dinner time!" said Nauls voice from afar.

Hastily, MacReady searched for clothes, tripping on an empty bottle on the ground. In a pricelessly rare moment, Windows surpressed a snicker.

***

The petrel remained nearby for the following days, appearently lost. Feeling pity for the bird, Norris left outside his dinner scraps when the weather was decent. The scraps always disappeared, though Blair always said it was probably the dogs, in spite of Clarks' objections. Windows pretended to not care about the whole issue, but secretly he frequently looked outside, trying to watch the seabird when he could. That day wasn't one such lucky day, as he actually had operations to attend for once.

Part of the reason Windows had been hired was due to his morse translations. The closest camp to both US Outpost 31 and the Thule Station were a russian camp and an argentinian camp. Even somewhere as peaceful as Antarctica was affected by the worst of the Cold War, and Windows had been commissioned to intercept any potentially incriminatory messages. So far, it has been every bit as productive as he expected, with the russians barey even making use of radio messages. Perhaps they were under the same spell as the other research stations, or maybe they were smart enough to not trust the US outpost nearby.

Whatever the reason, Windows reccorded every message he could anyways, and it was getting pretty boring. That day, it was a conversation with the argentinian camp in regards to snow cats. It had gotten quite surreal, involving a bizarrely immature "discussion" about which french snow drill model was better. Windows wondered if it was a cryptic message, though if it was it had to be the most camouflaged he had ever heard.

As he finished decoding the message, MacReady entered the room.

"The bird is outside."

"You like stalking me?"

"Everyone knows. No staling needed."

"Surely I can't be that bad at sneaking."

"Well, you are."

Both men got out of the radio room and walked to the rec room. Neither felt like going out in those conditions, but thankfully the petrel could easily be seen from outside. It was walking around, fearless as most of Antarctica's endemic birds, picking the scraps.

"You like birds?" MacReady asked.

"Yeah. They're like me, all alert and stuff."

"Would you like to fly like one?"

"Won't Garry be pissed off?"

"Who the hell cares?"

Suffice to say, Windows was quite excited at the prospect. MacReady smiled, and motioned him to follow. They quickly put on some extra jackets and went outside. The helicopter wasn't very far away, so they both got in it in a matter of a minute. MacReady started the engines, and very soon they were in the air.

The ascent took a couple of minutes, rising well above the antarctic landscape. The helicopter circled above the camp, passing near the mountaintips of the nearby elevations, bare to the wind. Windows was speechless, as enthralled as a little kid.

"So, what do you think?" MacReady asked, more rhetorically than anything.

"What the hell do you think?"

The flight lasted at least three hours, moving in circles around the camp, each time widening the route. At some point, the petrel took off and flew with them for a while, before retreating into the mountains. Near the end of said trip, they saw an helicopter far to the east, flying from the Thule Station, though they landed before seeing where it went.

When they finally landed, Garry was waiting for them, the most pissed off they had ever seen him.

"Just what the fuck do you think you were doing?"

"Spying the commies" answered Windows almost nonchalantly.

***

It was late at night, and Windows was trying to fall asleep. The room was pretty much empty otherwise; MacReady's shack was probably ready. Half of his belongings were still there, the other half was probably on his shack. He didn't brought many things, so it was mostly just clothes and empty bottles. Windows had shamelessly picked some briefs and a t-shirt for his own nefarious purposes, now laying at the pilot's bed. They were wet, but he honestly didn't care. He was tired, and it was just about warm enough inside for it to dry in the morning.

Sleep didn't come easily. Usually, Windows was a fast sleeper, especially when it came to remote, isolated places, such as islands. After all, in solitude there was no danger. But there, in the most extremely isolated place in the whole planet, he was nervous. It was perhaps _too_ solitary, and the Moon-less darkness in the large, empty room just made it more anti-human. There were no spiders down in Antarctica, yet he felt like one was crawling somewhere, and he was the fly in it's web. When MacReady was there, he felt secure, having someone else with him in the dark. Now, it was just him, and his paranoia.

Suddenly, he heard footsteps outside, in the corridor. The anxiety took over, and he rose up, eyes wide like a cornered impala's, which then relaxed and became wetter as he began to sob. He never felt so terrified in his entire life, alone in that forsaken place with something outside, coming towards him.

The door opened suddenly, inundating the room with yellow light, and inciting a scream. MacReady came in, obviously drunk off his ass as he walked like a zombie towards Windows, letting another bottle fall to add to the pile there.

"There you are. I looked all over this place for you."

He fell rather unceremoniously on Windows' bed, crawling on top of the man's legs. He clumsily raised his head, his eyes meeting Windows, who was then significantly relaxed and smiling, tears of joy running down his face.

"Your eyes are beautiful" said MacReady.

"Yours too."

Indeed, they were quite beautiful, glistening like small Moons, and just as conforting. Without warning, MacReady kept crawling, climbing on top of Windows. Before Windows could protest, their lips collided, surprisingly softly for such a quick motion. Too shacken by being startled several times, Windows made no resistance, and even pushed MacReady more into him, their smooch evolving into an intense kiss. The veteran tasted still very much like booze, but there was an unique sweetness in his saliva, as clichéd as that was. And he seemed to be enjoying Windows too, moaning softly. They continued for several minutes, Windows' hands passing softly through MacReay's beard and hair while the pilot tried to simultaneously support his weight and embrace the radio operator. At some point, he just gave up and fell on top of him, breaking their kiss and causing Windows to laugh, before diving his face in his hair.

"You're not really drunk, are you?"

"Well, more or less."

Saying this, MacReady began unbuttoning Windows' pajamas, touching his hair covered chest. In response, the other man kissed along MacReady's jaw, descending into his neck. The pilot moaned, and in response lowered his head to Window's chest, kissing the sternum, while the radio operator teased his right ear.

"I'm so glad you're here" Windows moaned.

MacReady responded with a quick kiss on his cheek.

"Missed me?"

"Hell yeah! I've been all alone here. You don't know how terrifying this room is without you.

"Have you ever considered turning on the lamp?"

"You know they'd kill me if I left it on."

"We're so romantic aren't we, talking about you being a moron."

Windows pretended to be offended, something that earned him a kiss in the nose. Both men kissed each other other passionately again, and it was Windows' turn to unbutton MacReady.

***

The next morning, Windows woke up to find that MacReady had gone off, and taken the rest of his belongings, though it was obvious that what happened yesterday was not a dream. Sighing, Windows cleaned and dressed himself. He hoped that the worst possible scenario wouldn't happen.

He stopped by the rec room, where Palmer was smoking weed and lazying around in a couch, Garry was cleaning his revolver, Fuchs was reading _Animal Farm_ and Norris was filling in some paper work.

"Has anyone seen MacReady?" Windows asked, trying to be as non-chalant as possible,

"He's in his shack" Norris answered.

"Why do you care anyways?" said Fuchs.

"Oh, ya know, he's left some things."

"Like AIDS?" chirped Palmer.

Both Fuchs and Norris froze in awkwardness, while Garry gave Windows an agressive, warning glare. Palmer was quite amused.

"Fuck you Palmer. Just fuck you."

"Ah, you wish!"

Windows flipped him the bird, and went to the radio room. There, he found a small note by the microphone, with "we need to talk" written on it. Windows sighed, and checked the radio.

Still not operational.

***

Windows knocked the shack's door as loudly as he could.

"I saw the note!"

Heavy footsteps could be heard, albeit muffled by the thick walls, and MacReady quickly opened the door, motioning Windows to enter quickly.

The shack was predictably quite crammed, but it was fairly luxurious, with a chess computer and a small tv.

"They paid no expenses did they?" Windows teased.

"Most of it was already here. They just got to move things around so I could sleep here."

His face grew a bit grim, as if his happiness had been sucked away. He sat down on a chair, hands clasped in dread of what to say.

"That's why we need to talk, isn't it?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

Windows sat down on a nearby chair, biting his lip in anticipation. Quite a few silent moments of awkwardness passed by, before MacReady sighed.

"Lets pretend it never happened" MacReady said.

"But why?"

"I'm fucked up in the head. Ever wondered why I need a shack like this?"

"Got it."

"Windows, don't lie like that."

"No, I really get it. You can't handle this."

"It's not just that."

"Oh what, you're trying to tell me it's the 'Nam flashbacks thing?"

MacReady gave an exasperated growl.

"Get out. Just piss off."

Windows did so. As he reached the door, MacReady grabbed his arm.

"What now?" Windows retorted angrily.

MacReady once again had a lost expression on his face, trying to come up with something to say, but failing. He settled for hugging Windows, who responded in the same way. Both men embraced for what seemed like an eternity, letting the tears on their faces dry.

Windows was the first to break up. He reached for his jacket's pocket, and took out the eagle plushie. MacReady wordless accepted it, holding Windows closely for the last time.

***

That night, Windows felt quite alone. The fear had subdued somewhat, but was now replaced by frustration and depression. He felt unusually exhausted, and allowed himself to slip into sleep more easily, waken occasionally by guilt about his and MacReady's failure.

At some point, he heard footsteps again, but he was too depressed to bother to be intimidated by them. The door opened, and a familiar scent filled the hair. He didn't dare to face the inturder, something that appearently made him upset since he heard melancholic sighs. He heard something landing on his table, then felt a kiss on his cheek.

"Love you."

Windows only rose several minutes after the intruder left. He turned on the lamp, and saw a small airplane figurine. It was in about as decent a state as his own plushie, paint having been scrapped off and a wing was broken.

Any notions of sleep were thrown away, as was his fear of the repercussions of having the lamp turned on all night. Windows just focused on the figurine, caressing it as he simply forsook his inhibittions to cry.

***

The fires on Outpost 31 began to die. MacReady, if still alive, was barely so, the polar frost having taken it's toll. He lost everything to save humanity, his life being not just the final price, but the least painful one.

Amidst the wreckage, however, there was still some movement. Large expanses of the buildings had unfortunately offered enough shelter, and in the span of a few hours, life had thrived and united itself, just as it did in the Thule Station. What remained mostly came from the several carcasses, burned but not to a crisp, the protected cores regenerating just as with the split-face, as well as from the small, almost insect like "scouts" that hid in the shadows the whole time. It took a while for them to find each other, but once they did they wasted no time assembling, down to the last stray cell, reconstructing a respectable form.

Noticing the two human corpses, The Thing briefly considered scavenging, as it's reserves were pretty low, but an impulse within it argued against it. It wasn't that big a deal anyways; turpor was the best it could hope for now. It came to rest near MacReady and Childs, under a large, vaguely canine visage, with hints of humanity disturbingly distributed on it. It laid down in the snow, taking confort in the fire that not too long ago was burning it, observing the two humans with the curiousity it was once forced to regretably abandon. 

Some strange chemical reactions passed like cursory impulses on it's nervous system, almost inducing a strange sense of lamentation. It had experienced something like that on the Thule Station's aftermath, though only now did it feel more powerful, perhaps due to the time and the full scope of intensity of it's prey. It was extremely confusing, to say the least, though it indulged in these reactions, more overwhelming by the second. They brought about strange, almost intoxicating sensations, like some sort of abstract stimulus, and as it built it also brought about a higher sense of awareness, that the inner Blue within craved. This self-indulgence had almost become a path for enlightment, as it began to truly understand the mechanics of the prey, how it actually operated on a deeper level.

These sparks of understanding, however, were cut short. Above it, a large thing hovered, soaring in circles as the dawn's light began to intensify. At first, the organism took it for a flying vessel, and began to prepare itself for evasion. However, it quickly dawned on it about what the flyer actually was, and it went the other route, imobilising and slowing down it's processes, preparing some assimilatory appendages in the frontal part of it's body.

It didn't take long for the petrel to descend, landing near the fire. It was seemingly starved, and began promptly feasting on MacReady's remains, it's beak tearing bits of his face quickly. Just as it finished eating off the man's head, a pair of tentacles grabbed the bird's body, dragging the desesperate petrel into the alien's makeshift mouth. The assimilation was quick, basically melting down the seabird in a matter of minutes and then beginning a very fast duplication. Most of the assimilator's biomass was now useless, so it canibalised parts of itself to speed up the process, until only a third of it's biomass remained, now fully converted into the petrel.

During this quick, hasty process, a lot of the Thing's late memories were lost, with a select bunch transfered into the new host. One set of memories still remained, however, and it bubbled in strange thoughts, relics of the assimilated victims. With little time to waste, The Thing took off, flying in the direction of the Thule Station, bent on gathering what remained of it there and transfering the knowledge of this flyer to it's other pieces.

As the Sun rised, three petrels flew off the Thule Station, following the coordinates within the memories of their prey. Within each petrel, there was one predominant internal sensation: an awe of flight, and a sense of freedom, that felt long craved and now realised. The Things would have never thought of that, but Windows would.


End file.
